Functional and stylistic features of C. S. Lewis' sermons

Sorokina Evgenia Evgen'evna PhD student, English Language Chair, Orenburg State Pedagogical University 460019, Russia, Orenburg region, Orenburg, Sovetskaya str., 19 ge.sorokina@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Since the beginning of the 1990s, interest in the religious sphere of human activity and its embodiment in language has been renewed and intensified in Russian science. One of the first to raise this topic was L. P. Krysin in 1994, who raised the question of the expediency of identifying and describing a separate functional style "specializing" in religious communication ^{[1, p. 288]}. In the future, his proposal received the approval of philologists. Currently, this style has various naming variants: religious-preaching, religious, religious-cult, church-liturgical, church-religious. The latter is the most preferable, since "it focuses not only on the religious form of public consciousness, but also on the Christian confessional affiliation of the authors of the relevant texts" ^{[2, p. 612]}. 

The "Literary Glossary" gives the following definition of a sermon, which is a kind of church-religious functional style: "Preaching is a didactic genre of oratorical prose that originated in ancient times (the speeches of the prophets in the Bible, Zarathustra in the Avesta; ancient eloquence) and flourished in the Middle Ages. The prototypes of Christian preaching indicated in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Corinthians are: glossolalia (the ability granted from above to speak in a language unknown to the speaker), profitia (prophecy) and didascalia (teaching instruction)"^[3].

Our work explores the sermons of the British writer and theologian, author of such world-famous works as The Chronicles of Narnia and Just Christianity, an Anglican by religion, Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963), published as an essay in 1949, and their functional and stylistic features (hereinafter referred to as FSO). 

Let's start the analysis by considering the sermon "Learning in Wartime" ("Education during the war"), delivered in the Oxford Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1939. The theme of this sermon is a reflection on the need for university education during the war. One of the FSO of the above text is the use of allusions. For example, this is an allusion to the historical events of the fire of Rome under Emperor Nero, when he was playing music, watching the destruction of the city: "fiddling when Rome was on fire" ("played the lyre when Rome was burning") ^{[4, p. 55]}, used to show the fallacy of the statement about the meaninglessness of receiving university education during the war. This statement is introduced by constructions like "what's the use ..." ("what's the use"), used in rhetorical questions. To show a different view of the situation, different from the one given at the beginning of the sermon, Lewis mentions the names of tangible and intangible works created at similar times: for example, such cultural objects left over from the reign of Pericles in Athens as the Parthenon and The Funeral Oration), as well as the names of places of military operations, where cultural objects were also created (Quebec, Thermopylae (Thermopylae).  In addition, a number of homogeneous members serve the same purpose: "propound mathematical theorems" (put forward mathematical theorems), "conduct metaphysical arguments" (argue about metaphysics), "make jokes" (joke), "discuss the last new poem" (discuss just published poems), "comb their hair"(combed) in combination with another number of homogeneous members, seemingly incompatible with the above: "beleaguered cities" ("besieged cities"), "condemned cells" ("cells for life prisoners"), "scaffolds" ("scaffolds"). As a result, the author of the sermon proves that even in times of upheavals, including wars, people did not stop developing spiritually, which is also relevant for the time of the Second World War, when this sermon was delivered [and also to some extent for our days, during the sharply aggravated political situation in the world. Lewis, using the techniques of antonymy and a number of homogeneous terms, also notes that there are no boundaries between war and "normal life", and that the concept of "normal life" is only an illusion. After all, as the author of the sermon points out, if you look closely, in the most "calm", "peaceful" periods for his country, for example, in the same XIX century, there were crises, disturbing events, difficulties, and hopeless situations that gave more than enough good reasons for curtailing all cultural events until justice is fully restored. But, despite this, little attention was paid to the above events, or they were hushed up altogether, and cultural life continued, because people wanted to see beauty right now, and not wait for the right moment, which may never come. In addition, the Christian view of the situation (not to exclude from life ordinary worldly pursuits, including education, only if they are performed for the glory of God) is shown by the author in allusion to biblical sources. For example, such allusions may be: "Our Lord attends a wedding and provides miraculous wine" [5] ("Our Lord comes to the marriage and delivers wonderful wine to [guests]"), about the first miracle of Christ — the transformation of water into wine during marriage in Cana of Galilee, which saved the groom's house from shame — as well as a reminder that it is necessary to do everything for the glory of God – "Whether ye eat or drink or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God" ^[6] ("So, whether you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God" (Synodal translation)). On the other hand, Lewis points out that the desire to prioritize instead of God not so much knowledge itself as the subject of knowledge itself leads a person to pride. To illustrate this position, the author uses a quote from Theologia Germanica: "We may come to love <...> our knowing—more than the thing known <...>" ^[7] "We can begin to love <...> ourselves as knowing something, more than the object of knowledge itself <...>"). In addition, among the FSO of this sermon, one can distinguish the category of appeal (performs the function of calling listeners to perform a certain mental action), manifested in various constructions. Among such constructions one can find the verbs of ought ("we must overcome spiritual prudery" ^{[4, p. 56]} ("we must overcome spiritual hypocrisy"), "every Christian must face a question" [ibid., p. 57] ("any Christian must face a question..."), "he must ask himself" [ibid.] ("he must ask himself"), "we have to answer the question" [ibid., pp. 57-58] ("we must answer the question ..."), "our whole life can, and indeed must / ought to become religious" [ibid., p. 58]) ("our whole life can, and indeed should, be dedicated to God ..."), verbs with imperative modality ("do not let your nerves and emotions lead you ..." [ibid., p. 60] ("do not let nerves and emotions lead you..." to bring you...")), as well as such types of complex conditional sentences as 0 Conditional ("if we do not believe them, our presence in the church is great tomfoolery" [ibid., p. 56] ("if we do not believe in them, our presence in the church is the greatest deception"), "if human culture can stand to this, it can stand up to anything" [ibid.] ("if human culture can resist this, it can resist everything")) or 1 Conditional ("if you don't read good books, you will read bad ones" [ibid., p. 59] ("If you don't read good books, you will start reading bad ones"), "If you don't go on thinking rationally, you will think irrationally" [there same] ("If you do not continue to think rationally, you will start thinking irrationally"), "If you reject aesthetic satisfactions you will fall into sensual satisfactions" [ibid.] ("If you refuse aesthetic satisfaction, you will have to be content with sensual satisfaction")). Another feature of this sermon by Lewis can be considered the frequent use of borrowed and book words to give a sublime coloring to the text: "panache" (fr. "panache"), "prima facie" (Lat. "at first glance"), "per accidents" (lat. "accidentally"), "predicament" (predicament), "achieve", "aegis" (Greek. "aegis", "cover"). One can also cite the idiom "plucking out the right eye", taken from the Bible, which serves to show Lewis' position that if science is harmful to our relationship with God, then they should be stopped.

C. S. Lewis's sermons on glory in God's Kingdom promised to people, "The Weight of Glory" ("The Burden of Glory"), delivered in 1941, include the following. At the beginning of the sermon, an allusion is used to the well-known verses from the Gospel of Matthew 16:24 and the Gospel of Luke 9:23 ("We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ" ^{[4, p. 24; 8-9]} ("We are told to reject ourselves, take cross and follow Christ")), which illustrates the Christian understanding of self-denial, more precisely, the rejection of one's own ego for Christ's sake and imitation of Him ("deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Christ"). In addition, Lewis draws an analogy between the goals of a Christian who has just begun his journey to the Kingdom of Heaven, and a schoolboy learning the basics of Greek grammar ("the schoolboy beginning <...> grammar ..." ("a schoolboy starting to study <...> grammar) - "the Christian in relation to Heaven" ("a Christian in relation to the Kingdom of heaven"). The goal of both at first is to approve their efforts, to evaluate their achievements by an authoritative mentor in their eyes or by a group of people whose opinion is meaningful to them. Explaining this topic, Lewis makes a comparison (in combination with the antithesis) of people who are content with low desires with a child who enjoys wallowing in a puddle and does not imagine that his parents want to take him to the sea ("half-hearted creatures" — "ignorant child"), "fooling about with (drink, sex, ambition)" ("having fun (drinking, lust, base desires)") — "making mud pies" ("making mud pies"), "infinite joy" ("infinite joy") — "holiday by the sea" ("rest by the sea")). In the text of this sermon, the above means serve to polemicize Lewis with non-believers who believe that Christianity pursues only selfish goals, as well as to compare the true goal with an easily achievable goal. The author also often uses outdated forms of different parts of speech (nay (no), thou (you), thy (your)) to give the sermon a sublime and solemn coloring. The quote of the famous poet of the XVIII century John Keats "The journey homeward to habitual self" ("And you come back here to yourself" (N. Trauberg)) from the poem "Endymion" ^[10] indicates the preacher's understanding of the Christian idea of man as a wanderer on this earth, aspiring to the Heavenly Kingdom. Finally, an allusion to the Holy Scripture "St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him" ^[11-12] ("the Apostle Paul promises those who love God not that they will know Him, as we believe, but that He Himself will recognize them") indicate that the glory promised to the faithful in the Heavenly Kingdom will represent that they will be recognized by God and deserve praise from Him. In addition, Lewis' understanding of the "burden of glory" refers to a quote from Scripture: "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" ("For our short-term light suffering produces eternal glory in immeasurable abundance" (Synodal translation)) ^[13]. It should also be mentioned that one of the features of C. S. Lewis' sermon is the presence of appellative constructions. For example, in the above text, the appellative function is performed by the verbs of ought ("we must not be troubled by unbelievers" ^{[4, p. 25]} ("we should not be confused by the opinions of unbelievers"), "we must play" [ibid., p. 40] ("we must play"), "our merriment must be of that kind <...>" (our joy must be like this..." [ibid.], "our charity must be a real and costly love..." [ibid.] ("our love must be real and valuable", verbs having an imperative modality (standing in in the form of the imperative mood) ("remember your fairy tales" ("remember fairy tales") [ibid.], "notice how they set about it" ("notice how they behave in this case") [ibid., p. 29]). In addition, the lofty coloring of the text is given by the presence of borrowed and book words: "?lan vital" (fr. "vital energy"), "consummation" ("completion"), "surmise" ("assumption"), "accolade" ("honor"), "torrens voluptatis" (Lat. "the flow of joy"), "vere latitat" (lat. "truly praised"). Rows of homogeneous terms expressed by qualitative adjectives reflect and reinforce the author's point of view: "a transstemporal, transfinite good" ("transstemporal, trans-finite good"), "shy, persistent inner voice" ("quiet, persistent inner voice"). The same purpose is served by repeating the expression "thus giving a sop to..." ("thereby agreeing with..."), in the case when C. S. Lewis explains the point of view of the progressive and creationist-evolutionist philosophies ("their reluctant testimony") from the position that every person is a wanderer on this earth and aspires to the Heavenly Kingdom. Describing two scenarios for the development of events when a person meets God (either acceptance into heaven or descent into hell), Lewis uses rows of homogeneous members expressed by passive participles: repelled (driven away), exiled (expelled), estranged (expelled), ignored (ignored, unnoticed); called in (called in, invited), welcomed (accepted), received (accepted), acknowledged (recognized). The anaphora technique used in the sentences "we cannot tell..." ("we cannot express..."), "we cannot hide it... <...> and we betray ..." ("we cannot hide... <...> and we give ourselves away...") strengthens the connection of the preacher with the listeners. The use of antimetabolism (repetition of words in successive parts of a complex sentence in reverse grammatical order) in the sentence "If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself" [ibid., pp. 33-34] ("If God is satisfied with creation, then creation can be satisfied with itself") — this is one of Lewis' favorite tricks. It serves to create the effect of memorization, at the same time acquiring the features of an aphorism. The rhetorical device of the diacope (repetition of a word or phrase with one or more intermediate words) indicates the idea that each person should consider himself and others as future immortal inhabitants of the Heavenly City and treat his neighbors accordingly. It means that, according to the Bible, at the end of time all people will be subject to a universal resurrection and their bodies will be transformed, and those who were faithful to God in earthly life and pardoned at the Last Judgment will live forever with God. Therefore, as Lewis notes, every Christian should remember this while communicating with his neighbors. The above-mentioned method of the deacope is presented by the author of the sermon in such examples as "all friendships", "all loves", "all play", "all politics" [ibid., p. 39] ("all our friendships, all love affairs, all games, all politics"), where the word is repeated "all", or "no flippancy", "no superiority", no presumption" [ibid., p. 40] ("without levity, without superiority, without arrogance"), where "no" is repeated (zd.: "without"). Another rhetorical device, hypophora (a question that the author of the text himself answers), expressed in the sentence "Do you see what has happened?" ("Do you see what happened?") [ibid., p. 28], namely the direct question itself and the use of the pronoun "you", serves to indicate a more trusting relationship between the preacher and the audience. The same technique is expressed in the question "Why any [of the promises] except the first?" ("Why any of them [promises], except the first?") [ibid., p. 31] in the discussion of the five main promises to people in the Kingdom of Heaven, which can be reduced to two: life with Christ and enjoyment of the gifts of God's grace.

Let us consider from the above positions the sermon "Transposition" ("Transposition"), delivered in 1944 on the Day of the Holy Trinity. The theme of this sermon is a reflection on the means of transmission of higher matters by lower ones. One of the FSO of the above text is an allusion, an example of which may be a reference to the words of the Apostle Paul about glossolalia (speaking in other languages by the power of the Holy Spirit) in the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 14: "St. Paul himself seems to have been rather embarrassed by it in 1 Corinthians and labours to turn the desire and the attention of the Church to more obviously edifying gifts, <...> throws in almost parenthetically the statement that he himself spoke with tongues more than anyone else, and he does not question the spiritual, or supernatural, source of the phenomenon" ("The Apostle Paul himself seems to have been confused by such a topic In 1 Corinthians, he tries to draw the Church's attention to more edifying gifts, <...> almost casually mentioning that he himself spoke with tongues much more than others, without asking the question of the spiritual or supernatural origin of this phenomenon") ^{[4, pp. 8-9; 14]}. The author uses this FSO to show that this topic has always raised many questions for him, especially while observing the life of Revivalist meetings, where ecstatic mumbling in an incomprehensible language is considered a "gift of the Holy Spirit" (which is also found among modern Pentecostals. In his reflections on the topic of the sermon, C. S. Lewis cites an excerpt from the diary of the famous English official of the XVII century, Samuel Pepys, about watching the play "The Virgin Martyr" (the work of T. Dekker. — Note E. S.) in "The King's House" (The King's House ("Royal House" — a palace built by Sir Christopher Wren for King Charles II in Winchester in 1683-1685, demolished in 1894 Now the Peninsula Barracks barracks have been standing in its place since 1900.— E. S. Note). In this passage, Pepys writes about how he was struck to the depths of his soul by brass music: although he felt sick, he remembered at the same time how he was in love with his wife, so he subsequently began with my wife is learning to play wind instruments. The author of the sermon uses this diary entry as an example of a person experiencing a strong emotional shock, much like what the apostles experienced and what modern Pentecostals are experiencing, and the physical signs of this experience, as Lewis points out, can manifest both positively and negatively. In addition, there is an example of parallelism in this sermon: "The closest parallel to it within that class is raised by the erotic language and imagery we find in the mystics" ^{[4, p. 10]} ("The closest parallel in this case can be the erotic language and images that mystics encounter"). To give a more sublime coloring to the text, Lewis uses Latin borrowings: "mirabilibus supra me" ("wonderful things above me").

Finally, we will also highlight the FSO in the sermon "Membership" ("Membership in the Body of Christ"; "The Collective and the Mystical Body" (N. Trauberg lane)), delivered before the participants of the ecumenical Anglican-Orthodox Brotherhood of the Holy Cross. Albania and Sergia February 10, 1945. The theme of this sermon is a reflection on the peculiarities of membership in the Church and its differences from modern manifestations of collectivism and individualism. Lewis begins his address with a quote from the leader of the ecumenical movement, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (1881-1944): "Religion is what a man does with his solitude" [ibid., p. 41] ("Religion is what a man does with his loneliness"), however, indicates that a Christian should not to forget that it cannot exist separately from the Church, and that there is an element of conciliarity in it. On the other hand, the author proves that membership in the Church has nothing to do with either modern individualism or collectivism. He illustrates his position by various means of expressiveness. For example, these are idiomatic expressions ("to the rainbow's end" [ibid., p. 43], "to the Greek Calendars" [ibid.] (cf.: "after the rain on Thursday")) used to show that the development of our personal relationship with God is often subject to the influence of the vain world, the machinations of the devil, offering us various entertainments. Lewis sees Christian life as the only salvation from the troubles that modern collectivist society brings, quoting from Scripture: "handle serpents and drink deadly things and yet live" ^[15] ("take snakes, drink deadly and still stay alive"). Describing the phenomenon of membership in the Church as in the Body of Christ (proposed by the Apostle Paul. — E. S. note), the author of the sermon gives the apostolic understanding of the Greek word ("members"), used to refer to members of the Church as organs of the body, and also gives an analogy with the family, where each member is unique in itself, but is in unity with other members, being part of the system: "...If you subtract any one member you have not simply reduced the family in number, you have inflicted an injury on its structure. Its unity is a unity of similarities, almost of incommensurables" ^{[4, p. 46]} ("... If you remove any member of the family, it will not just decrease in size, its very structure will be harmed. It represents the unity of dissimilar, almost incomparable members with each other"). Membership in a Church where members differ from each other not only in structure and functions, but also in importance, Lewis contrasts membership in a club, in a company, in a list of voters in a constituency, where participants resemble only similar units or "cogs". In addition, C. S. Lewis cites his understanding of equality in civil society: it was introduced largely for the reason that any person is a sinner by nature, and the illusion of equality, as the author of the sermon points out, hides this nature. Further, he extrapolates the concept of equality to the whole world, saying that all people, regardless of social status or other factors, are equal before God, that He loved everyone not because we deserve His love, but because He Himself is Love. To illustrate his position, he draws an analogy with clothes that hide a naked body: "Equality is for me in the same position as clothes. It is a result of the Fall and the remedy for it. <...> It is the hierarchical world, still alive and (very properly) hidden behind a facade of equal citizenship, which is our real concern" [ibid., pp. 49-50] ("For me, equality is in the same position as clothing. This is both a consequence of the fall and a remedy for it. <...> We should be concerned about human inequality, which still exists and which is carefully hidden under the facade of equality of civil society"). In this sermon, you can also see the appellative constructions, which are expressed by the so-called "we-constructions", including the verbs of ought ("we must insist"), "we are to lead" ("we should lead"); "we are hampered by" ("us they fill up ..."), "we mean" ("we mean ...")), which also perform the function of uniting the preacher and listeners. In addition, in this sermon there are various phraseological turns with the word "road" ("obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality" ("obedience leads to freedom, humility leads to pleasure, unity forms personality" [ibid., p. 48]) with the help of which the author also indirectly encourages listeners to perform certain mental actions related to the Christian life.

The above indicates that the sermons of C. S. Lewis are characterized by certain FSOs. Among them are various quotations (from Holy Scripture and fiction), allusions to the above-mentioned works, outdated and high-style forms of words, borrowings, various kinds of analogies and comparisons, as well as various rhetorical techniques (diacopes, hypophores), rhetorical questions, repetitions. In addition, these are various appellative constructions, including various verbs with imperative modality, the so-called "we-constructions", various types of complex conditional sentences. The analysis of the FSO data allows us to illustrate the position of C. S. Lewis and his understanding of the Christian faith in the context of his contemporary life.  

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